Candlelight
by Darcy Zoe
Summary: These things just happen, and for some, it all works out in the end.


_**Hey, guys! So this is my fist ever Bamon story here on FFN. I got the idea from a Bamon prompt I found on LiveJournal. I can't remember which one, but I saved the prompt a couple months ago and I just decided earlier to write it out. Please excuse any mistakes. I only reread it once.**_

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><p><strong>Candlelight.<strong>

The resemblance to Katherine is what drew Damon to Elena. Big, brown, innocent eyes, beautiful chestnut hair, and full, completely kissable lips that he could still feel against his if he closed his eyes and just imagined.

To Damon, Katherine, despite her selfish intentions, was perfect. Elena was the sweeter, more loving version of Katherine. When she cared, she cared hard. When she loved, she loved unconditionally. He needed unconditional love and, at the time, he felt like Elena, the girl who looked like the only person he ever loved, could give it to him.

At first, he didn't care if he hurt Stefan in the process of getting Elena. In fact, he wanted Stefan to feel pain and rejection and lost love. Stefan was the golden boy. His father loved him, Katherine loved him, and Elena loved him. Stefan got it all without trying while Damon tried for everything and got nothing. So, when Elena and Stefan closed the final chapter in their book of ridiculous Twilight-esque love, Damon wasted no time swooping in and drying Elena's tears. He comforted her when she cried, patted her back when she told him how much she missed his brother, and kissed her on the lips when she said she was lonely.

But after everything, Elena was still in love with Stefan. Damon could see it in her eyes when she kissed his cheek every morning, and he could hear it in her voice when she writhed under him at night. After an entire year apart, Stefan and Elena still craved each other and Damon… Damon was starting to feel as if he was in the way again. As if he was second choice. When these feelings came, he couldn't switch it off no matter how hard he tried. When he looked at Elena, beautiful and good in every way imaginable, he couldn't ignore the sadness in her eyes.

And he missed his brother more than he would ever admit out loud. Stefan hadn't spoken to him in a year. That was short for a vampire, but after everything they'd been through, after how much they'd sacrificed for each other, it still wrecked him on the inside to not see his brother. His little brother who had risked everything for him.

For the first time in his life, Damon willingly chose someone's happiness over his own. He let Elena go and listened to her speech about always loving him and always being there for him if he needed her. Damon stared at her blankly and glassy eyed until she kissed him. Her lips were soft and sweet, but the kiss felt final. She won't be coming back to him the way she was currently running back to Stefan.

As soon as she left, like a light switching off, Damon's obsession with her had disappeared. He should have been happy. He should have gone out and fucked someone and drank some good alcohol. But, at the end of the day, he was still alone in his big, old house, wishing he was human so he could grow old and die.

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><p>Damon could remember the first time he saw Bonnie as someone other than Elena's Witch Bitch of a friend.<p>

She had just defeated Klaus once and for all. His body was turning to ashes next to her feet and Bonnie wasted no time collapsing right next to him, breathing harshly as if her lungs had stopped working. There was soot in her hair, cuts in her shirt, and blood was trickling out of her nose and out of the fang gashes in her neck. Damon got to her before Stefan did and pulled her limp body into his lap. He brushed her hair back and found her pulse, immediately feeling the weak beat beneath his fingers. She was alive, but she was dying.

This wasn't like the elaborate plan they had set up together to save Elena's life a year ago. She was _**really**_ dying. She had given her life to save Elena and Caroline and Stefan and everyone else in this godforsaken town.

Even Damon.

Without a second thought, he bit into his wrist and let his blood run into her unmoving, chapped lips.

Chaos was still going on around them. The hybrids Klaus had created were still moving in on them even though Klaus was nothing but ashes and bones by now. The ones that avoided Elijah aimed for Stefan, Caroline and Tyler. Damon didn't understand why the hell they didn't just go home. They stood no chance with Klaus dead and Elijah on the opposing side.

He sat there with her in his lap until Elijah had killed the last two hybrids. With perfect timing a few seconds later, Bonnie opened her eyes and tightly closed it again as if it hurt to see.

"Is it over?" She asked as Caroline and Elena rushed to her side.

"Yeah," Damon said as he stared down at Klaus's ashes right next to them. "It's over."

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><p>A few months after his time with Elena and a year after the Klaus incident, Damon kissed Bonnie for the first time. It was impulsive and unexpected and Bonnie panicked and pushed him away. Her eyes were bright under the moonlight and she was breathing heavily. He could feel her blood rushing beneath her skin. He could hear her loud and rapid heartbeat. It was the only loud noise in the quiet night.<p>

"Damon, I—"

Rejection. Damon felt this one right down to the bone and for the first time in a long time, he was embarrassed. He hoped it was dark enough outside so she couldn't see his pathetic expression. The only thing worse than embarrassment was having an audience while you felt sorry for yourself.

He turned away from her but she stopped him before he could leave.

She watched him with a calculating gaze. He wished he could read her expression, but he couldn't. She was like a canvas covered in something he'd never seen on her before. Before the night she had killed Klaus, the only looks reserved for him was impatience, annoyance, determination, and – when he'd done or said something completely stupid – disbelief.

But she was watching him now as if she was trying to put a few pieces together. Something had changed in her. Deflated.

She lifted a hand and touched his face before she trailed a thumb over his cheek bones and right under his eyes.

"Again." She said softly. She'd never used this voice with him before, either.

He leaned in again, moving his hand to cup the back of her head before he experimentally placed a soft quick kiss her on her lips. As he was pulling away, she moved in, capturing his lips in a gentle, hesitant kiss as she moved her hands to grip his leather jacket sleeves in her tight fists.

This was no immediate, unhealthy obsession. This was everything he'd never knew he wanted. Everything he had never experienced before.

When he pulled back, he looked at her as if he was seeing her for the first time.

They only broke eye contact when she moved in to lean against him. They stood like that for a long time, neither being in a rush to move away or break the silence.

If Elena was a candle lit in his heart, Bonnie was a forest fire.

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><p>Bonnie was everything Elena was. Beautiful, brave, passionate, caring, protective and honest. She was also everything Elena <em>wasn't<em>. She was strong, willful, fiery, motivated, persistent, and devoted in such a way that no one could hold a candle to her.

She let Damon be alone when he wanted to be and she let him be downcast on days that he felt under the weather. However, she refused to let him feel sorry for himself and blame everyone else around him for the way his life turned out. She refused to let him slip back into the darkness when he thought that that's what he really wanted. She was a rock and she was _his_.

Today, when Damon lies down next to her in bed, watching her beautiful face as she slept, he thinks back to the first couple of meetings he had with her. Who would have thought that the judgy, bossy best friend of the girl he was in love with would be the one that he would burn the world down for today?

Damon didn't. Bonnie didn't either. But that's life. These things just happen, and, for some, it all works out in the end. It definitely worked out for him, because now Damon can truly say that he's happy.

**FIN**

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><p><em><strong>So, that's it. Please review. Tell me if I should write more!<strong>_


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